Published:PravdaNo. 44, May 12 (April 29), 1917.

      Published according to the text inPravda.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1964,

      Moscow,Volume 24,

      pages330-331.Translated:Isaacs BernardTranscription\Markup:B. BagginsandD. WaltersPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      1999

      (2005).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Inconnection with the report that several ex-ministers had
      accepted directorships of big banks,Pravdaasked:

“Inhow many banks do the present ministers, Guchkov,
      Tereshchenko, and Konovalov—have an interest (in the
      capacity of directors, shareholders, or actual owners)?”

“Ourcomrades, the bank employees (who, by the way,  should
      organise a union of their own as  soon as possible), would do
      well to gather material on this subject and publish it in the
      labour
press.”[1]

Alarmedby  this,Birzheviye Vedomosti,  a paper which,
      as we know, savours strongly of banks, writes:

“The‘comrades employees’ are asked to organise a
      detective service, to rummage about in the tills of the
      bourgeois ministers for the purpose of checking the cash in
      them. With the same effrontery the Bolsheviks are rummaging
      about in other people’s convictions. May we not soon seePravdaadvising the comrades to set up a secret police
      department of their own. Room for it will be found in the
      Kshesinskaya mansion....”

“The‘comrades employees’ are asked to organise a
      detective service, to rummage about in the tills of the
      bourgeois ministers for the purpose of checking the cash in
      them. With the same effrontery the Bolsheviks are rummaging
      about in other people’s convictions. May we not soon seePravdaadvising the comrades to set up a secret police
      department of their own. Room for it will be found in the
      Kshesinskaya mansion....”

Whyare the gentlemen fromBirzheviye Vedomostiso
      perturbed?

Whathas “detective service” got to do with it, gentlemen?

Wehave nothing whatever against the bank employees publishing
      lists of bank bosses ofall parties.Why,gentlemen,
      shouldn’t the people have a right to know who are the chief
      owners of such institutions as the banks—those powerful
      institutions on which the country’s whole economic life depends,
      and which have such a say in deciding the. issues of war and
      peace?

Whatare you afraid of, gentlemen?

[1][PLACEHOLDER.][Banks and Ministers]

—Lenin